1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to barrier materials that resist the passage of gases, such as air, particularly as used in inflatable articles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some materials, especially those used in inflated sports articles, such as soccer balls, volleyballs, and rugby footballs, exhibit undesirable properties such as high air permeability, low resiliency, high hysteresis and unsatisfactory aging characteristics. These undesirable properties are often associated with engineering rubber components, whether made from natural rubbers, synthetic elastomeric materials, or blends thereof. For example, soccer balls made from these materials may require frequent re-inflating which can pose problems to users or merchandisers of such articles.
The high hysteresis of the components used in sports balls is also of concern. During normal use, a sports ball endures significant deformation and reshaping with each impact against a player's foot or the playing surface. This effect has been observed with high-speed photography. As the ball deforms, mechanical energy is dissipated in the form of heat, thereby increasing the rubber core temperature and reducing the resiliency of the ball. This loss of stored mechanical energy can also result in a lower return speed of the sports ball, which in the case of soccer balls would translate into lower “foot speed”.
A pending provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/455,674, filed Mar. 18, 2003 and also assigned to DuPont describes a process for making air-inflatable sports balls, particularly tennis balls, from formulations of millable polyurethane (MPU) and rubber. Although not bound by any theory, it is hypothesized that the MPU/rubber mix forms an “alloy” which is instrumental in providing the superior properties, especially barrier properties. Currently, latex rubbers are used for many sports balls because they are relatively inexpensive and have desirable elastic properties. However, they typically exhibit poor barrier properties, which results in greater loss of air in use as well as in storage for articles made therefrom.
Therefore, a desirable goal has been to develop a process that will allow the use of latex rubber (or other latex compositions) for making articles, such as sports balls bladders, bicycle tubes, and the like, having low permeability and other characteristics found in the materials of the aforementioned provisional application.